Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.
Sir Richard Steele has observed, that there is this difference between the Church of Rome and the Church of England: the one professes to be infallible, the other to be never in the wrong.
Sensibility would be a good portress if she had but one hand; with her right she opens the door to pleasure, but with her left to pain.
Shrewd and crafty politicians, when they wish to bring about an unpopular measure, must not go straight forward to work, if they do they will certainly fail; and failures to men in power, are like defeats to a general, they shake their popularity. Therefore, since they cannot sail in the teeth of the wind, they must tack, and ultimately gain their object, by appearing at times to be departing from it.
We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine, but if defer tasting them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.
Pride requires very costly food-its keeper's happiness.
He that is gone so far as to cut the claws of the lion, will not feel himself quite secure, until he has also drawn his teeth.
Of all the marvelous works of God, perhaps the one angels view with the most supreme astonishment, is a proud man.
It is good to act as if. It is even better to grow to the point where it is no longer an act.
He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.
If it be true that men of strong imaginations are usually dogmatists--and I am inclined to think it is so--it ought to follow that men of weak imaginations are the reverse; in which case we should have some compensation for stupidity. But it unfortunately happens that no dogmatist is more obstinate or less open to conviction than a fool.
It is with antiquity as with ancestry, nations are proud of the one, and individuals of the other; but if they are nothing in themselves, that which is their pride ought to be their humiliation.
The Grecian’s maxim would indeed be a sweeping clause in Literature; it would reduce many a giant to a pygmy; many a speech to a sentence; and many a folio to a primer.
Physicians must discover the weaknesses of the human mind, and even condescend to humor them, or they will never be called in to cure the infirmities of the body.
That cowardice is incorrigible which the love of power cannot overcome.
There are prating coxcombs in the world who would rather talk than listen, although Shakespeare himself were the orator, and human nature the theme!
Persecuting bigots may be compared to those burning lenses which Lenhenboeck and others composed from ice; by their chilling apathy they freeze the suppliant; by their fiery zeal they burn the sufferer.
Women do not transgress the bounds of decorum so often as men; but when they do, they go greater lengths.
A power above all human responsibility ought to be above all human attainment.
God will excuse our prayers for ourselves whenever we are prevented from them by being occupied in such good works as to entitle us to the prayers of others.
There are both dull correctness and piquant carelessness; it is needless to say which will command the most readers and have the most influence.
Sturdy beggars can bear stout denials.
Women who are the least bashful are not unfrequently the most modest; and we are never more deceived than when we would infer any laxity of principle from that freedom of demeanor which often arises from a total ignorance of vice.
If merited, no courage can stand against its just indignation.
The awkwardness and embarrassment which all feel on beginning to write, when they themselves are the theme, ought to serve as a hint to author's that self is a subject they ought very rarely to descant upon.
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